Caroline and Sara…pop a towel down on that beach for me! I may be a fair way behind you, but that’s my aim too (I’ll be on a later flight than you girls!!)
Same theme, different business…I am also a qualified equine sports massage therapist treating mainly performance horses. I had quite a number of eggs in one basket with my clients. I had one dressage client who had 5 extremely valuable horses (I’m talking some more than the value of my flat kind of valuable!!) and she treated them very very well indeed. I treated them on a fortnightly basis but, when the recession hit as she’s married to a banker she had to scale right back. The horses went out on loan and I ended up with a gaping hole in my business that just couldn’t be plugged. Other clients had to sell horses and those that were having monthly treatments dropped to every other month, then quarterly etc. I still treat horses but now cram them all into one weekend a month, but funnily enough I’ve got too many on my hands now.
To be honest, whilst it was fabulous money, it was very solitary and really began to take its toll physically. Also, when I was very busy although I looked at outsourcing some of the work, my clients wanted me to treat their horses and not for me to send someone else, which as a horse owner I can fully understand. Personally, I took on a new farrier who sent his apprentice one day when I was at work and he knobbled my horse. He’d got the balance of his foot so wrong that over a period of time it strained one of the ligments in his foot and he ended up so crippled he nearly had to be put down. After 3 YEARS completely confined to his stable (he’s an indoor sort so didn’t mind too much) and more love and attention than he could want, he’s made a full recovery and is back to competition fitness!
Anyway, I digress…I would be really nervous about having such a large part of my income coming from one client…once bitten, twice shy!
An interesting topic.
Regards
Victoria